


Of Ice Skating & Men

by Colourmesoftly (Fallacyinwonderland)



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: I LOVE HER SO MUCH, M/M, Muslim Character, Muslim!Otabek, Slow Build, Social Anxiety, Viktor spelled with a k, also i live for yuri and yuuri friendship, and will definitely have a happy ending, dw lmao we have enough shit irl as it is, hope it isnt too confusing, i love the russian crew, i will try to get mila in this story asap, socially anxious!Otabek, spelling yuuri as yuri cause thats his name, this will not be too angsty, viktuuri will be minor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-05
Updated: 2017-01-05
Packaged: 2018-09-14 21:33:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9204251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fallacyinwonderland/pseuds/Colourmesoftly
Summary: How Otabek Altin came to several realizations about himself. His family. His relationship with Yuri. Not in that order and not always at the right time.(sorry i suck at summaries tbh)





	

It’s the end of the skating season when Otabek gets a message from Russia’s own Yuri Plisetsky. It’s a crispy Friday in Almaty just after 10 in the morning, perfectly good spring weather outside, that he is – this is according to his mother- wasting indoors in his home rink. 

“Beka, darling, at least take today off. You have months to prepare- “ his mother had started earlier in the morning while he was putting on his running shoes. Otabek hadn’t really waited to hear the end of her sentence, preferring to go out for his daily morning jog. He needed to get at least 5 kilometers before going to the rink.

He would appease her by taking a break and going to Jummah – the Friday prayer – at their local mosque. Maybe try to socialize with his peers… or not. His mother would be happy to hear Otabek mingling with anyone to be quite honest.  

His parents had always been very supportive of Otabek’s skating career, especially as he was declared Kazakhstan’s hero when he finally began bringing home medals. They were proud of him, and proud that he would represent their country at such an international level . Albeit they didn’t exactly understand the life of a professional athlete. They mostly left him to make his own decisions in regards to his career, trusting him implicitly. Their trust and support had meant quite a lot for Otabek, competitive figure skating was definitely not a cheap hobby to take on the side. It needed complete devotion not only his physical and emotional, psychological devotion, but also of his (and in turn his family’s) financial devotion.

The days of financial worry were mostly over though. Being Kazakhstan’s hero had his perks, among those the complete financial coverage of all his skating needs along with a generous stipend for Otabek himself. The Kazakh government wanted Otabek to flourish as the first Kazakh in the international figure skating world, wanted him to be a role model for other young children. He had qualified for the GPF now twice in a row, hopefully a third time would also be in the works.

Otabek wasn’t the least bit interested in being any kind of role model though. He had an aversion for any kind of social interaction that meant being in the center of attention for anything other than his skating. Social anxiety was a bitch.

It had been an OK ending of his skating season after his fourth place at the GPF of Barcelona – which Otabek was silently still bitterly disappointed about (after JJ’s horrendous SP he really had thought he would medal). (definitely not the gold medal as both Yuri’s were more determined than he had ever seen). (the bronze should have been his. How did he miss such an opportunity?).

He had at least made it up with a silver medal at Four Continents (hah JJ hadn’t even medaled and Otabek had a petty streak apparent) and a bronze in the following World Championships (following Japanese Yuri’s gold and Russian Yuri’s silver). Given that next season Viktor Nikiforov would return to the rink definitely meant that Otabek had to fight tooth and nail for his spot. It was exciting and nerve wracking at the same time.

His phone showed the time being 10:11, Yuri had just sent him a text, well several texts actually. Given that Yuri was a habitual multiple texter, the Kazakh skater had once even woken up to 25 text messages from the blond. And over half of them were just exclamation marks in reaction to cat videos from youtube. Of course Yuri being the cat lover that he was had to send him every video he had watched, liked and shared on twitter (No, Otabek reaaaally didn’t use Twitter much.. It’s just that Yuri he didn’t want to miss anything from his friend’s life.. His first friend he should at least be courteous to keep up right?).

It wasn’t a cat video this time.

_> >Sent 9:55 from Yuri Plisetsky: BEKA!!! Did u finally dl sc??? Isw2g if u havnt…._

It had two follow up texts a minute apart that were just question marks. Yuri really hated waiting for text responses. He quickly replied, it had been almost 15 minutes now. No need to make Yuri wait longer.

_> >Sent 10:12 to Yuri Plisetsky: Good morning. Yes I did actually last night, you have asked every night for two weeks now. I don’t really understand it however. How do you follow people?_

He immediately got a reply from Yuri

_> > Sent 10:12 from Yuri Plisetsky: YES FINALLY. Add me, my username is yuri-plisetsky, urs??_

_> >Sent 10:15 to Yuri Plisetsky: I’ve added you, otabek-altin._

_> >Sent 10:15 from Yuri Plisetsky: What took u so long? Nvm added u U have to send me snaps okk. dont forget._

It had actually taken Otabek a while before he figured out how to add people, he wasn’t sure how long it would take before he figured out how it worked. It was just a messenger app with pictures right? He didn’t quite understand the appeal but Yuri had been asking him to get the app so he could “appreciate Yuliya’s graceful elegance in full” Yuliya being Yuri’s cat (he did agree with Yuri, Yuliya was really a beautiful cat and anything that excited his friend so much would interest Otabek quite honestly).

It was still early morning in St. Petersburg, with their three hour time difference. He was probably at his morning ballet practice with madam Baranovskaya currently. Yuri complained plenty about Lilia’s strict behavior especially during skate season and even now while they officially didn’t have any skating competitions to attend until later this year, madam Baranovskaya had taken Viktor’s return to the rink as a direct challenge of her (and her pupil’s) abilities. If Otabek had noticed that even with all the complaints Yuri had about Lilia’s strict regime he never disobeyed her he didn’t mention it to his younger friend. Yuri very obviously respected her for her professional opinion, not to mention that all the days he had spend living at her house had grown a reluctant affection for the older Russian ballet instructor.

His phone lighted up again with a notification, it was from Snapchat and Otabek opened the app. There was a red box next to Yuri’s name which showed he had sent a snap(he wasn’t a complete recluse plus Yuri made it difficult to be ignorant in these things), Otabek clicked on it and the timer began counting down. He had been right in guessing that Yuri would be at the studio. The first photo was just a black and white photo of an empty dance studio. There was no caption on the photo and before he could really focus on any details the timer went down and the next snap showed up. This one was of Yuri himself being a mirror selfie of Yuri stretching his right leg. Holding it completely stretched and straight above him, Lilia had really been trying to maintain Yuri’s flexibility with his body going through puberty and changing so fast. Yuri couldn’t take the off skate season to slack off, he had to almost relearn how to skate again. Otabek appreciated his friends photo in the way that he appreciated any photo or video of Yuri. Yuri had been Otabek’s inspiration since he was 13 years old and that hadn’t changed after befriending him.

 Otabek had been quite lucky going through his puberty, he hadn’t really had a growth spurt to speak of. Yuri once told him uncharacteristically subdued during a skype session that the physicians had expected him to reach at least 1.80 cm with the rate that he was growing. Otabek didn’t really know the words to say at the moment. Yuri was in fact the first real friend he made and speaking about his emotions or comforting other people was not his strong suit. Before the silence stretched on Yuri’s eyes had turned back towards the webcam and he had spoken with such determination, so typical Yuri “There is NO fucking way that I’m gonna let Katsudon and Viktor think they’re gonna have an easy season. That old man thinks he can just come back to competitive level skating after slacking off all year with his disgusting boyfriend-“

“Fiance. I believe they are engaged now.” Otabek had finally spoken up with a soft smile, very amused at his friends reaction. He truly did have the eyes of a soldier...

“whatever the fuck they are!! It doesn’t matter ‘cause I’m going to take all the gold and then him and piggy can go back to wherever they were the past year!” he had ended with a smile that honest to god almost frightened Otabek. Viktor and Japanese Yuri really brought out the competitive side of Yuri to say the least. He was aware that Yuri reacted with anger to a lot of situations where he was upset or emotional vulnerable. It was a defense mechanism really just like Otabek’s stoic image was for him a defense mechanism for his social anxiety.

Yuri respected both Japanese Yuri as well as Viktor greatly, not only respect but also a very clear affection he had for them. Maybe one day Yuri wouldn’t feel the need to show his emotions through anger.

While Otabek had been recalling these memories the photo had disappeared already. He kind of wanted to appreciate it a bit longer, but now that he had this app maybe he would get to see his friend more often? He hoped so. (was that a weird thing to hope for? Otabek didn’t know.. He was older than Yuri but Yuri had turned 16 just over a month ago making their age difference two years? You were supposed to feel this excitement when talking to friends right? It was normal?).  

He sighed knowing he had to send at least something back before he would be bombarded by his friend with messages. Yuri didn’t understand how anyone below the age of 20 could live without at least updating their social media once a day.

What should he send? He didn’t really have anything interesting to show. He could take a page of Yuri’s book and send him a photo of his home rink. Before thinking too much on it he took a photo of the (mostly) empty rink. He didn’t know what to caption it as so he send it without anything. Otabek was mostly a listener instead of a talker anyhow.

He stowed his phone back in his bag and after skating a whole circle around the ice stopped in the middle and went back to practicing his old routines. Seeing how much effort his friend put into his work, he couldn’t stay behind. He wanted to share that podium again with him. And with a new and warm determination that always filled him when thinking of Yuri he continued his morning practice. The rest of the world (temporarily) forgotten. 

**Author's Note:**

> What is pacing. Idont know. Fuck me. This is the first fic I’ve ever in my life have written. Please help me. (I started this story solely cause I want to see more Muslim!Otabek and it not be a freaking cliché-ass fic that turns into some black and white image of how muslims have to be/act). There will be more of this.. when, I’m not sure yet because ive written this instead of finishing all my essays. If you’ve read so far… Wow thank you so much <3 I’m trying to get a hang of all things I promise ill do better :)
> 
> This is unbeta-ed so expect mistakes lmao english isnt my first (nor second) language. 
> 
> Before I get responses about how I represent islam within this fic.. I am a muslim woman myself. A queer muslim woman(yes we exist), so pls don’t tell me how this doesn’t fit within islam. There are all kinds of muslims in the world.


End file.
